Finished: Lilac Cherry Cardigan

As promised, here she is, the finished Cherry cardigan!

Pattern: Cherry Cardigan from My Fashionable Life
Yarn: Jaegar Aqua 100% cotton, 7 and a bit skeins
Needles: US6 and US3

The is going to be a very wearable knit - it's springy, feminine, good with jeans or skirts, buttoned up or open. The eyelet detail along the waistband is a nice touch, so you can weave in any tie or ribbon you like. As you can tell, I'm quite happy with it - I've been parading it around Columbus the past week, and I think it will be coming on holiday with me as well. The pattern is from My Fashionable Life and is easy to follow - I'll hopefully be making a couple more using the basic instructions, but maybe with another motif. Amazingly, I was even able to make a few adjustments without any major catastrophe. My mods: I swatched and got a tighter gauge than required, so instead of going up a couple of needle sizes (memories of the disaster with the Drops jacket), I just knit a bigger size that fortunately gave me the right measurements. Second, I knit the body to 14" long instead of 15", because I am short-waisted and noticed that the waist detail on other Cherries sat fairly low. The whole cardigan is knit in Jaegar Aqua, and took about 8 skeins total on US6 and US3 needles. The buttons and ribbon (the only roll of matching ribbon in the entire store) are from Joann, and although I originally wanted a grosgrain ribbon, the sheer one with blue trim has been holding up just fine. Seaming, as usual, was a pain, particularly setting the sleeves. Somehow, my sleeves were a bit on the tight side, so if I were to knit this again I would probably make them a tad bigger (I guess I have big arms). Next time I'll probably knit the back and sides as one pieces to reduce seaming.

I had artistic intentions of photographing Cherry at the park, but impatience and time constraints meant cleaning off (i.e. shoving to the side) the windowsill and snapping a few pictures with my webcam so that I could blog about it before my trip. They're a little washed out, but what can one do without a full time fashion photographer and one's beck and call? I'll be sure to get D to take a few pics in a nice garden in France.

From the back: Birdie pattern

We arrived in Toronto yesterday (leaving poor Gatsby behind) and will be spending a few days here before our flight to Europe. Before we left, I borrowed a whole bunch of audio books from the library (which, as usual, shocked me with their vast selection) including Julia Child's My Life in France, Inflight Croatian, Italian 101, basic French, and Paris Walks. So far we are really enjoying the Childs memoir, which should keep us entertained on the flight - she lived such an interesting life, and the descriptions of her Paris experiences are wonderful.

I have one more blog post I can put up before we leave, so check back here to see the efforts of my first jewelry class!